News in Brief: A National Roundup

Hazing Incident Prompts Suspensions in Illinois

The Northfield (Ill.) Township District 225 school board last week
suspended and may expel 32 seniors involved in a May 4 off-campus
hazing incident that sent five female students to the hospital.

School officials in the northern Chicago suburb suspended the 28
female and four male students at Glenbrook North High School for 10
days, the maximum allowed under Illinois law. Officials are working
with local police investigating the incident, which occurred at a
"powder puff" football game. Criminal charges are expected.

The "students who actively participated in [the incident] are in
violation of public laws regarding hazing and assault and battery,"
said Michael D. Riggle, the principal of the 2,100-student high school,
in a statement. "In addition, they are in violation of the school
hazing policy ... as well as sections of the Illinois School Code
regarding nonschool-sanctioned student groups who conduct covert
activities."

Many of the students are appealing the suspensions to school
administrators, and at least several of the suspended students are
trying to block their penalties in court, stating that the school
system is denying their rights to an education, school officials
said.

A Cook County circuit judge last week refused to block one student's
suspension because of lack of evidence, reported the Chicago
Tribune.

—Rhea R. Borja

New Jersey Judge Rules For One Valedictorian

A federal judge in New Jersey has ordered Moorestown school
officials to drop their plan to name two high school valedictorians, a
move that prompted the student with the top grade point average to
sue.

Judge Freda Wolfson of the U.S. District Court in Camden agreed with
Harvard University-bound senior Blair L. Hornstine that making her
share the honor would discriminate against her on the basis of a
disability. Ms. Hornstine has an immune deficiency similar to chronic
fatigue syndrome and did much of her work at home.

Superintendent Paul J. Kadri argued in court papers that the program
gave her a special advantage. He sought to give a second Harvard-bound
senior the honor as well.

The judge harshly criticized the district in her ruling, saying
officials should have adjusted the program earlier if they had doubts
about its fairness.

—Bess Keller

L.A. Schools Released From Spec. Ed. Quota

A new consent decree gives the Los Angeles Unified School District
more freedom to decide how it mainstreams its students with
disabilities.

The agreement, approved by the school board May 13, abolishes a
quota that had required 7 percent to 17 percent of each school's
student population to be children with disabilities.

That quota range would even have applied to the district's 17
special education centers, said Donnalyn Jaque-Anton, the district's
associate superintendent for special education.

The 750,000- student district has 86,000 special education students,
Ms. Anton said.

The consent degree results from a class action by parents of special
education students filed in 1993.

—Lisa Goldstein

Parents' Hidden Tape Recorder Captures Bus Driver's Abuse

A Milwaukee couple grew so curious about why their 9-year-old son
was always getting into trouble on the school bus that they decided to
investigate.

Rosemary and Vince Mutulo put a tape recorder in their son's
backpack for the bus ride to school. The boy, Jacob, has Down syndrome
and attention deficit disorder.

What they heard was so disturbing, Ms. Mutulo said, that she
couldn't play the tape all the way through the first time. The tape,
made April 29, revealed that the bus driver was threatening and then
hitting her son, Ms. Mutulo alleged.

"He tells him to shut up, or he'll slap the living hell out of him,
break his arm, break his finger," she claimed. "I was speechless; I was
physically ill."

The driver, Brian Duchow, has been charged with felony abuse of a
child. Mr. Duchow could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the 105,000-student district said Mr. Duchow will
not be permitted to drive a district bus again.

—Lisa Goldstein

Edison Refuses to Elaborate On Talk of Going Private

Edison Schools Inc. said last week that its losses narrowed in its
fiscal third quarter and that it is still on track to report its
first-ever quarterly profit by the end of June.

Meanwhile, the company declined to elaborate on a recent
announcement acknowledging that Chief Executive Officer Christopher
Whittle and other senior executives were exploring a buyout that would
take Edison private.

The New York City-based school management company had a net loss of
$6.4 million on revenues of $108.4 million for the three months ending
March 31, compared with a $12.8 million loss on revenues of $121.9
million for the same period last year.

The company announced May 8 that Mr. Whittle and other senior
managers were considering making an offer to purchase all outstanding
Edison shares they don't already own.

David Graff, Edison's general counsel, said during a conference call
last week that the company would not answer questions about the
potential buyout unless and until a deal was completed. Edison's stock
closed at $1.78 on May 15.

—Mark Walsh

Lawsuit Claims School District Encouraged Religious Participation

Officials for the Union County school district in Tennessee filed
court papers this month denying that administrators had failed to
respond to reports of harassment of a student who did not attend an
off-campus religious event.

Two parents have sued the 3,200-student district, alleging that
their daughter was repeatedly harassed by school employees and students
for refusing to participate in a privately sponsored Christian tent
revival attended by many students during school hours.

The lawsuit, filed in February in U.S. District Court in Knoxville,
Tenn., by Sara Jane and Greg Tracy on behalf of their daughter, India,
alleges that the district sponsored and encouraged students to attend
an annual three-day event called "The Crusade," which is run by a
Baptist minister.

Ms. Tracy, 14, has left her public middle school, and the suit seeks
reimbursement from the district for her home instruction.

John C. Duffy, a lawyer for the district, said the school system
does not sponsor or encourage students to attend the crusade, but
permits them to attend with parental permission.

The sponsor of the PSAT—which is also called the National
Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test—said that its scoring sheet for
the Oct. 15, 2002, exam had the wrong answer on a question involving an
often-overlooked rule of grammar.

The question asked test-takers to identify a grammatical error in a
sentence or to answer that the sentence was properly structured. The
question started: "Toni Morrison's genius enables her to create
..."

The Educational Testing Service, which writes the PSAT, the SAT, and
other tests for the New York City-based College Board, said the
sentence was grammatically correct.

Kevin N. Keegan, a teacher and newspaper adviser at James Hubert
Blake High School in Silver Spring, Md., brought the matter to the
College Board's attention. Mr. Keegan, a 25-year teaching veteran, said
that the pronoun "her" was used incorrectly to refer to the possessive
"Toni Morrison's."

After consulting several grammar texts, Mr. Keegan wrote to the
ETS.

They exchanged several letters before the Princeton, N.J.-based
testing service hired a panel of experts to review the question. The
panel conceded that Mr. Keegan had a point. But the experts said that
many grammar texts would accept the sentence as it was constructed,
according to Lee Jones, a vice president of the College Board.

Although the College Board decided to remove the question from the
test, it did not lower the scores of students who gave what the ETS
initially considered the correct answer.

—David J. Hoff

Vol. 22, Issue 37, Page 4

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